For the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP), the NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis, in partnership with the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center, is evaluating and analyzing outputs and outcomes of four programs funded by FORHP's Community-Based Division (CBD). The programs within CBD that are being evaluated are:
- the Rural Health Care Services Outreach Grant Program (Outreach program);
- the Rural Health Network Development Program (Network Development program);
- the Small Health Care Provider Quality Improvement Program (Quality program); and
- the Delta State Rural Development Network Grant Program (Delta program).
Awardees within and across programs include networks of community-based organizations, health care organizations, schools, and others implementing a wide range of activities to increase access to care and improve health outcomes in rural communities to reduce rural health disparities.
The evaluation is designed to capture cross-program and program-specific qualitative and quantitative data from annual reports submitted by awardees. The team will code and analyze the data to develop annual program-specific evaluation reports. In addition to annual program-specific reports, the team will conduct a cohort analysis that will provide key findings for the three years of the program, key trends, vignettes and awardee examples, and program impact.
The evaluation will provide FORHP with recommendations for strengthening the programs, ideas on how to demonstrate health outcomes and improved health status, performance measures, and revisions to future Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs).
